Amy Levin, leader of Temple Torat Yisrael, chairs RI Board of Rabbis

Posted
Thursday, June 28, 2012 1:00 pm

Rabbi Amy Levin, spiritual leader of Temple Torat Yisrael of East Greenwich, was recently elected chair of the Rhode Island Board of Rabbis, an association of Rabbis who live in or serve the Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts area.

Rabbi Levin previously served as vice president of the Board of Rabbis. She has served as Temple Torat Yisrael’s rabbi for eight years.

The Board of Rabbis is a coalition of rabbis from every major

Jewish denomination, serving in congregations, educational and community settings. The Board of Rabbis provides a rabbinic voice on boards of most of the area’s Jewish organizations.

A member of the Rabbinic Assembly, Rabbi Levin has served as spiritual leader of Temple Torat Yisrael during an exciting and challenging time, as the congregation left its physical location in Cranston after some 60 years, to move to East Greenwich. The move brings the synagogue closer to its current members, and in a location where the Jewish population is experiencing considerable growth.

Before coming to Temple Torat Yisrael, Rabbi Levin was the spiritual leader of Congregation B’nai Israel in Gainesville, Fla.

Rabbi Levin grew up in New Jersey and worked as the education director of a collaborative Hebrew high school program for three Conservative congregations in New Jersey before making aliyah (moving to Israel) in 1981.

She was the second woman to be ordained by the Schechter

Institute of Jewish Studies, the rabbinic seminary of the Israeli

Masorti (Conservative) Movement and served as a congregational rabbi in Jerusalem.

She is on the board of the Girl Scouts of Rhode Island. Rabbi Levin serves on the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Laws and Standards.

Since 2008, Rabbi Levin has served as a mentor for senior rabbinical students who are fellows of the Legacy Heritage Rabbinic Fellows Program.

Rabbi Levin has two children. Her daughter, Adina Lederhendler, works in Israel's hi-tech industry and her son, Aryeh Lederhendler, is an artist who is a gradauate of the Jerusalem Studio School run by the Israeli artist Israel Hershberg.